


A Marriage of (In)convenience

by AuthorToBeNamedLater



Series: The Heiress and The Bounty Hunter [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alliances, Crack Relationships, Crack Treated Seriously, Din Djarin Needs a Hug, Enemies to Friends, Families of Choice, Family Drama, Gen, Marriage of Convenience, Planet Mandalore (Star Wars), Political Alliances, Political Expediency, Reluctant Mand'alor Din Djarin, The Mandalorian Darksaber (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:47:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28706889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorToBeNamedLater/pseuds/AuthorToBeNamedLater
Summary: Unwilling to duel Bo-Katan for the Darksaber, everyone's favorite space dad has but one option available to him.01/24/2021: Minor updates to sync better with "The Rescue."
Relationships: Din Djarin & Bo-Katan Kryze
Series: The Heiress and The Bounty Hunter [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2111850
Comments: 74
Kudos: 126





	A Marriage of (In)convenience

**Author's Note:**

> Rest of Mando Fandom: DinLuke! DinBoba! CaraDin! DinCobb!  
> Me: So no one else has noticed this delightfully ridiculous enemies-to-lovers crack ship with a neon sign over it begging "WRITE ME!"?
> 
> This took way more research and turned out way longer than a crack-treated-seriously fic should, yet here it is. Many thanks to MrToBeNamedLater who took my "I think Mando's gonna have to marry Bo-Katan next season" joke seriously and told me I should write it, and helped me make this far-fetched scenario sound at least moderately plausible.
> 
> After rewatching "The Heiress" and "The Rescue" I made some minor edits so this fic would fit better with the events in those episodes.

Din Djarin sat on the deck, on the bridge of Moff Gideon’s cruiser, and stared at the elevator door that had closed some unknown amount of time ago.

Grogu was with the Jedi. Din had told the kid they’d see each other again, but not knowing the Jedi’s name or where they’d gone, it would be a tough promise to keep. Cara had left with Fett and Fennec to bring Gideon to the New Republic for trial. Bo-Katan and Koska were still on the bridge, plotting their next steps. Din wondered if they’d forgotten he was there.

He wouldn’t mind if they had.

Din straightened his back to lean on the workstation behind him and looked into the visor of his helmet, as if it could tell him when exactly he’d lost all control over his life.

Less than a year ago Din had been a solitary bounty hunter, with a ship and a covert and a face concealed under beskar and a name not spoken for over three decades, and The Way.

Now he had none of those things.

In their place he had a foundling who’d just left Din’s life as abruptly as he’d entered, a ship turned to ash, a covert raided, a roomful of people who’d seen his face and knew his name, and The Way he’d forsaken.

And a sword.

A sword that evidently gave him a claim to the Mandalorian throne. A sword that he couldn’t give up without a fight, maybe to the death.

Footsteps approached from Din’s left and he looked up.

Bo-Katan.

For a moment Din thought she was going to ambush him for the Darksaber right there, and part of him hoped she would so he could just get rid of the thing, but instead she sat down next to him.

“I probably should have warned you,” the deposed leader apologized with a glance at the saber’s hilt.

“We’ll fight,” Din said without preamble. He was not in the mood for repartee. “I’ll make it look convincing and you take the sword from me.”

“That’s not going to work,” Bo-Katan said flatly. “It has to be a fair fight.” She gave Din a sidelong glance. “Mandalorians know a fake fight when we see one.”

That was certainly true.

“You defeated this thing’s previous wielder, right?” Din dropped his gaze. Looking at another living being without his helmet felt wrong. “So you should have no trouble besting me.”

Bo-Katan’s pause was decidedly uncomfortable. “Not exactly.”

“How did you get it?”

“It’s a long story.”

“We’ve got nothing but time.”

“I was Regent of Mandalore after the Siege,” Bo-Katan started. “But when the Republic fell, I wouldn’t bend my knee to the Emperor. He removed me and installed an Imperial governor in my place.

“Several years ago the Darksaber fell into the hands of a Mandalorian named Sabine Wren. She could have taken the throne, but she didn’t want it. Didn’t think she was a worthy leader, wanted to find someone who was. We found each other and she yielded the saber to me.”

“This Sabine person just gave this—” Din thrust the hilt toward Bo-Katan “to you then, but I can’t do the same now?” _That would be just my luck._

Bo-Katan looked nearly ashamed. “I shouldn’t have accepted the Darksaber from Sabine. The Protectors and clans pledged their allegiance to me as _mand’alor_. I thought that was enough. I thought I could unify our people.”

“Can I yield the saber back to this Sabine?” Din asked. “Where is she now?”

“I have no idea,” Bo-Katan answered with a shake of her head. “I haven’t seen or heard anything from her since the Empire fell. Even if we could find her, she wouldn’t take it.”

 _Can nobody in the galaxy take this sword from me?_ Din groaned to himself.

“Anyway, in typical Mandalorian fashion, we split into factions and ate our own,” Bo-Katan said sardonically. “When the Empire came, we were too divided to stand up to them.”

“Is that how Gideon got the saber from you?” Din asked. He shifted his focus to the video monitor over Bo-Katan’s shoulder. It let him see her without making eye contact. Din wondered if he would ever get used to seeing the world with his own eyes.

“Yes. In the Purge.” Bo-Katan took a long breath. “I was injured, not in any condition to put up a fight, and Gideon made quick work of me. One second I was squaring off with him, next thing I knew Koska was dragging me off the field and telling me Gideon had the Darksaber.

“I didn’t win the Darksaber in combat, and I lost it in rather embarrassing fashion,” Bo-Katan explained. “Mandalore won’t recognize me again. Not if I don’t win the Darksaber properly.” Her lips twisted in something between a grimace and a scowl. “Maybe not even then.”

“And what, Mandalore _will_ accept me?” Din huffed in exasperation. “This may come as a surprise to you, but I’m not exactly the royal type. I don’t _want_ to be _mand’alor_ , I don’t want your Darksaber, I don’t want to rule. I’ve never even _been_ to Mandalore.”

Silence hung between them for a few awkward minutes. Din took stock of the woman sitting next to him. Bo-Katan had proven herself determined and capable and an adept fighter, but Din didn’t know how much skill she had with a sword. He did know that if the duel came to brute strength Bo-Katan would be no match for him.

He didn’t want to consider that outcome. While Din had no desire to take a throne, he had even less to kill someone who didn’t deserve death.

“There might be another way,” Bo-Katan said.

Din waited for her to continue.

“Since you don’t want to challenge me, you could join Clan Kryze,” the redhead began.

Din blinked. “Your clan?”

“Yes.” Bo-Katan shifted.

The pieces clicked together in Din’s exhaustion-addled mind and he swung his head to look at her. “You mean I have to marry you?”

The look on Bo-Katan’s face would have been amusing under other circumstances. “That…was a jump.”

“You said I join your clan.”

“I did.”

“You also told me you’re the last of your line.”

“I am.”

“There are no other Kryzes left?”

“No. There aren’t.”

“So you’re a clan of one, I make you a clan of two, and this _isn’t_ a marriage?”

“Listen, Watch-Child,” Bo-Katan snapped, “I don’t know how it works with your kind, but Mandalorians join clans all the time without getting married.”

“A man and a woman?” Din pressed.

“Does it matter?”

 _Yes, it fekking does matter,_ Din wanted to snap, but he managed to hold his tongue. “Do I have to take the Kryze name?”

“That’s usually how it works when you join a clan.”

Din sat and thought for a second. “Sounds like marriage to me.”

“It’s not strictly a marriage.”

Din had never had much patience for nuance. “What is it, then, _strictly_?”

“An alliance,” Bo-Katan said coolly. “A business deal, if you want to think of it that way. We don’t have to live together or…”

 _Or sleep together,_ Din didn’t say.

“…even like each other.” Bo-Katan gave a rueful smile.

Any second now, Din would wake up on the _Razor Crest_ and the last several months would turn out to be a wild dream. He was sure of it.

 _The_ Razor Crest. Din had almost forgotten that his ship was a pile of dust on Tython.

“What’s to stop me from leaving the saber here and disappearing?” Din asked. He could easily find a ship in one of the cruiser’s docking bays.

“I’ll find you,” Bo-Katan said with confidence. “I found you once already and I wasn’t even looking for you.” She sobered. “I won’t be the only one looking, either. You’re on the Empire’s radar now. You go on the run, they won’t care what it takes to get you.”

 _Grogu._ Cold terror clenched Din’s chest.

His resolve began to unravel.

“What happens if I drop dead?” Din asked when he had his voice back.

“The Darksaber goes to the next in line for the throne.”

“And if we’re clan, that’s you.”

“Yes.”

Suddenly discomfited by how long he’d been looking at Bo-Katan, Din looked down at the Darksaber hilt. “Then how do I know you won’t kill me in my sleep for this thing?”

“If I wanted to kill you for the Darksaber, you’d be dead already,” Bo-Katan answered. “Contrary to popular opinion, I’m not a cold-blooded murderer.”

“Good to know,” Din deadpanned.

“My sister ruled Mandalore during the Clone Wars,” Bo-Katan said softly. “She was a pacifist. Wanted to move us beyond our martial history, become more peaceful. Diplomatic.”

“That ended well,” Din observed dryly, wondering at the point of this tangent.

Bo-Katan ignored the remark. “There was a splinter group on Concordia. Death Watch. They wanted to restore Mandalore to our warrior ways. Death Watch’s leader, well, he wanted to be their leader, killed my sister. Ran her through,” Bo-Katan pointed to the Darksaber “with _that_.”

Din felt a primal fury stir in his gut. He’d shed plenty of blood in his day, but he did not suffer the slaughter of innocents. Absently, he realized that had gotten him in this mess to begin with.

Then Bo-Katan dropped the bomb: “I was part of Death Watch. Not just part of it, I was second in command.”

That got Din’s attention. He sat up straighter and turned to look at his unlikely companion.

“Satine—my sister—and I were estranged when she died.” Bo-Katan was trying in vain to hide the sheen in her eyes. “I thought her quest for a kinder and gentler Mandalore was a fool’s errand. There was only one way to be Mandalorian.”

Din clutched the Darksaber harder.

“Satine knew otherwise.” Bo-Katan clasped her hands so tightly her knuckles must have turned white under the gloves. “She understood that Mandalorians are unstoppable when we stand together, no matter our differences. Moff Gideon understands that too. It’s why he wanted the Darksaber. Without it, Mandalore can never unite.” Bo-Katan took a shaky breath. “I didn’t understand. Not until it was too late. 

“Mandalore’s been getting shredded my whole life and—” Bo-Katan’s voice caught. “—I helped shred it. I can’t change the past, but I can fight to give our people a better future. Mandalorians,” she flicked her eyes to Din, suddenly looking vulnerable “ _all_ Mandalorians, deserve to live free.”

“Where are you going with this?” Din couldn’t keep the impatience out of his voice. He didn’t enjoy protracted conversations, and after the events of today he found his tolerance even lower than usual.

Bo-Katan met Din’s gaze without fully turning her head to him, almost as if she were kneeling and begging for help. “I can’t just show up with the Darksaber and reclaim my title. You can’t run from this, no matter how badly you want to, and you will meet resistance as a Child of The Watch. If we join forces, we might have a chance.” She did face him full on now. “We’re Mandalorians, and we’ll be stronger together.”

“What does this make us, then?” Din asked wearily. “Besides clan?”

Bo-Katan stretched her legs out in front of her. “If you want to get technical about it, King and Queen Consort.”

“And that means…?” Royal titles were well out of Din’s depth.

“It means I have a royal title but no real authority.”

“Can I give you authority?”

Bo-Katan nodded once. “You can.”

“But I can’t give you the damn Darksaber.”

“No. You cannot give me the damn Darksaber.”

 _Of course I can’t._ Din wanted to both laugh hysterically and weep hopelessly at it all. What had he done? What unknown deity had he so pissed off to go from common bounty hunter to unwitting and unwilling ruler of an entire planet?

However, Din Djarin was not one for grand displays of emotion, so he did neither of those things.

“We’re the King and Queen of Mandalore but we’re not married?” Din asked.

Bo-Katan rolled her eyes. “Will you come off that?”

“Hey, I didn’t survive this long as a bounty hunter flying blind into uncharted territory,” Din told her.

_Oh. I don’t have a job anymore, either._

“What does that have to do with any of this?”

Din fixed the woman with a stare that would have had a lot more weight through his visor. “It means I like to know exactly what I’m walking into.”

Bo-Katan looked at the Darksaber. “That’s something coming from a guy who was trying to rescue his foundling and got a kingdom.”

Din was ready to scream. This wasn’t his fight, it wasn’t his cause, it wasn’t _him._ He was a bounty hunter. Not a king or a ruler or whatever the fekking laser sword said he was.

“You’re walking into an alliance,” Bo-Katan said earnestly. “And a very messy, violent, volatile political situation that may be beyond either of our abilities to mend, but neither of us can walk away from it.”

“I’m not this _mand’alor_ you want me to be,” Din protested in a whisper.

“But you _are_ a Mandalorian.”

“Not anymore.” Din found his gaze drawn back to the helmet.

“There’s not just one way to be Mandalorian.” Bo-Katan’s voice was almost gentle. “Life exists outside the covert, you know.”

_My covert. That’s gone too._

“Maybe Mandalore needs a new kind of leader.” Bo-Katan gave a crooked but genuine smile. “Maybe that’s you.”

“I do need somewhere to go,” Din admitted. “Gideon destroyed my ship.”

Bo-Katan’s jaw dropped. “When did this happen?”

Din didn’t answer. “I also burned all my bridges with the Guild when I went back for the kid.” It was only half true—Din knew Greef could reinstate him.

But Din couldn’t go back. Didn’t want to go back. He wasn’t a bounty hunter anymore. He didn’t know what he was anymore.

_A king, evidently._

“You…” Bo-Katan’s brow furrowed. “Wait, what?”

Din didn’t answer that, either. “And the Empire raided my covert.” He looked at the helmet on the floor. “Not like I could go back there anyway.”

“You’re homeless, unemployed, and stranded?”

Despite himself, Din felt a tickle of dark amusement. “Some king, huh?”

“You didn’t mention any of this earlier.”

Din shrugged. “Wasn’t important earlier.”

“Well, it’s sure important now,” Bo-Katan said with a bewildered chuckle. “So do we have a deal or…?”

“Doesn’t look like I have much choice.” _Yes, I’ll become King of Mandalore because there is absolutely nowhere else in the entire galaxy for me to go._ “I’m sure this isn’t what you had in mind when you asked me to join up with you.”

“Definitely not,” Bo-Katan conceded, almost warmly. She paused a moment. “Do you have a name?”

Din looked at her.

“I can’t keep calling you Watch-Child,” the redhead pointed out.

“I…” Din bit his lip. He’d spoken his own name only once since swearing the Creed. When he’d thought he was going to die on Nevarro and he’d told Cara to take Grogu back to the Armorer.

The Creed was as good to him as his old ship, now.

“Din Djarin.” The name felt brittle and foreign in his mouth. Another piece of his life falling away like discarded armor.

“An honor to meet you, Din Djarin.” Bo-Katan extended her right hand.

Din clasped her forearm in the traditional Mandalorian handshake, but he couldn’t formulate a verbal response. His adrenaline was spent, his head and body ached from his run-in with the dark trooper, his heart ached from—

 _No._ Din bit his tongue to ward off the tightness in his throat. _Don’t think about him. Definitely don’t think about what the Imps would do to him to get to you._

“When you said you burned all your bridges with the Guild,” Bo-Katan began, “going back for the child. What did you mean? And when did Gideon blow up your ship?”

“That’s another long story,” Din said. He released the other Mandalorian’s hand, leaned back and closed his eyes. “A very long story.”

He heard armor scraping on the deck as Bo-Katan mirrored his posture. “We’ve got nothing but time.”

**Author's Note:**

> ~~I'm not sure if I'll continue this headcanon, though Mr insists I must. I'm open to ideas.~~
> 
> Due to an unexpected amount of reader interest (no lie, I was fully expecting at least one person to tell me how silly this idea is) I've decided to continue with this to the best of my abilities. If you have ideas, requests for, questions about the travails of Mandalore's unlikely ruling family, leave em here.


End file.
